Oxford University Press analysed more than 120,000 short story entries by children to BBC Radio 2's 500 WORDS competition, finding that the writers used hashtags liberally to add comment to statements and sentences.

She then picked it up and ran out of the cave… the cave exploded and she didn't look back at it exploding, she just kept on walking forward # super cool.

Another wrote:

The only thing I knew for sure was that I was going to get eaten (# frightened!!!).

Aside from hashtags, mobile technology and social media were highlighted as the biggest theme in this year's entries, with YouTube, Zoella, Snapchat, selfie, vlog, blog, Instagram, emoji, and WhatsApp all appearing in the top 20 words.

PS4, iPhone, MacBook, and tablet are on the rise, but mobile, ipod, Nintendo, mp3, Wii, TV/television/telly, Facebook and e-mail declined. The analysis of the entries also found words like hits, shares, notifications, comments, likes and views were all being used by entrants in the same context as how they're used on social networks.

As well as writing about social media and technology, the young writers also paid attention to big world news.

OUP found that events to mark the centenary of World War I, the outbreak of Ebola in west Africa, the conflict in Ukraine, the Malaysian Airlines crashes and peacekeepers all featured in the children's stories.

Made-up words also appeared, such as Stegasuarez, a combination of a stegosaurus and footballer Luis Suarez, chocoumptious and wellysaurus.

As one would expect with under-13s, Frozen dominated popular culture references with Elsa, Olaf and Sven all popping up in entries. Movies such as Maleficent, How To Train Your Dragon 2, Paddington and Shaun The Sheep appeared while One Direction and Ed Sheeran were also used in high numbers.

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